Bridge City Testimony

By Patty Prince

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My husband and I returned from our vacation on a Friday night and the next day we were packing for a mandatory evacuation from Hurricane Gustav. It was a crazy time, believe me!

We returned from that evacuation and a week later had to evacuate again, this time from Hurricane Ike. We are still under mandatory evacuation although we're allowed in during certain hours to sift through what little belongings we have left.

In our community, Bridge City , most of the homes were hit by the storm surge. Ninety percent of the homes were flooded, ours included. This had never happened in our community before. Because  Bridge City is over thirty-miles from the sea, no one thought the surge would travel that far inland. But, it did! It brought massive destruction to nearly everyone in Bridge City and  to many in Orange . 

We had fifty-two inches of water in our house. There were no windows or doors busted. And, what's unbelievable is that the water that was retained within the house must have had some strong wave motion with it. Our furniture floated and moved from room-to-room. What was once in the dining room ended up in the foyer. A tea cart that had once stood in the dining room had  traveled  down the hallway, turned a corner and ended up in the guest bedroom. A basket of purple onions that once had set on top of the kitchen counter, rested comfortably on a bed in another bedroom. Our two refrigerators floated, then toppled over face forward. Even our grandfather clock that once stood in the corner of the living room, lay face-down on the floor.  

The storm surge brought with it fish of every variety. There were perch, bass, and drum fish lining the streets and strewn into every ones' yards. Fish were even trapped in chain link fences. The stench of rotting fish, days after the hurricane, permeated the air in our community.  

The surge left a black sludge that stuck to everything. It lined the pavements, sidewalks, and floors of our homes. I don't know what it was composed of, but I do know it was not easy to wash off!

Because the storm surge was saltwater, it caused even more damage. Vehicles that were left in garages and driveways were totally lost. We, in fact, left two of our vehicles in our garage and the insurance company totaled them because of the saltwater damage. 

Most every house in Bridge City has furniture, mattresses, and torn-out carpet stacked in front of it. I'm enclosing pictures of some of the aftermath. 

There are over twenty-families from Faith UMC that had their homes flooded. Kevin Kissel, our pastor, organized a team from our church to go to each of these homes to offer assistance. The team came to our home on Thursday and worked all day.

Since we are still without electricity, Kevin brought his generator to get us up and running. Our generator was under water. With his generator, we were able to extract some of the remaining water from our home using the Wet Vac. The team removed furniture, pulled up wet carpet, and helped with clean-up of the sludge.

Karen came too and brought comfort and food. She stayed the entire day and helped search for missing keepsakes, all remnants from our past. She saw my look of despair as I glanced down into the china cabinet that now laid flat on the floor. It was filled with items given to us by our ancestors over the years. The china tea service my aunt had given me years earlier was piled in a heap. It was too much to bear. I simply had to walk away.

But Karen didn't. She knelt down in that black sludge and methodically began to pull  the pieces out one-by-one, wiping each piece clean as she went. She worked tirelessly until the last piece was  retrieved. She found a tabletop and proudly set each unbroken piece on it. And then she came and got me. She put an arm around my shoulder and told me to look as she pointed me in the direction of the tabletop. There were all the pieces, all unbroken, save one. It was an act of love I'll never forget.